Shayna's first day of school

Shayna had her first day of school today at Del Prado Elementary. Here she is about to walk into school:

The school is set up with a huge courtyard in the middle, which you walk through to get to the classrooms and wings. Some have doors directly to the outside, and one wing has indoor hallways. Shayna's classroom, 301, has the door leading to the outside, and its the first room in the outdoor corridor so almost in the big courtyard.

They had an open house on Monday the 20th, where you could go see the school, see the room, meet the teacher, etc. The PTA had a giant booth set up in the courtyard with tables: sign up for various volunteer committees, a table with used uniforms, and info. about the after school clubs. You can also volunteer in the classroom/s. Shayna's teacher is Mr. Mandel.

One good thing about Florida schools is the classes can not be bigger than 20 students, so Shayna's class has maybe 18-19 kids. At the open house I met 2 other moms with daughters in her class, and we arranged to meet for lunch the next day so the girls could get aquainted. One of the girls, Carissa, is new to the school too, she switched into the full time gifted program from the regular classroom at her old school. The other girl, Hannah, has been at the school since kindergarten, and her mother grew up here. Carissa and her mom are from California and have been in Boca for 5 years.

So far in the first week of school they have started science- hurricanes, reading- reading a novel and learning vocabulary, and took the math assessment test. They assess the entire gifted 5th grade (5 classes) and then place them into math classes/groups.

As you can see in the above photo, they have to wear a uniform. Blue, white or green collared shirt (or dress), with blue or khaki pants, shorts, or skirt/skort.